


Greatness (And It's Strange)

by prouvairablehulk



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 10:12:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10739601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prouvairablehulk/pseuds/prouvairablehulk
Summary: The being they now call Mick Rory is old, his bones worn down with years and ages and tasks and prayers and stories. He has lived lifetimes, borne hopes on his broad shoulders, dragged safety from the depths.He is also tired.





	Greatness (And It's Strange)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a redux of Not Given Lightly, a FlashWave Week fic of mine. Title from You’re Welcome, because as many problems as I have with how they wrote Maui in that movie, I couldn’t resist the reference.

The being they now call Mick Rory is old, his bones worn down with years and ages and tasks and prayers and stories. He has lived lifetimes, borne hopes on his broad shoulders, dragged safety from the depths.

He is also tired. 

So tired, in fact, that he leaves his home, the land he created, and wakes in the body of a young man sitting in the ashes of his home. The being they now call Mick Rory might also be deliberately ignoring his True Name, and all the baggage that goes with it. He goes to Juvie, he finds the threads that maps where the arc of his life will lead, and then trips over Tyche in the body of a little, pretty, thief. Who is, naturally, getting the shit kicked out of him.

“Lucky you found me.” says Tyche, who’s going by Lenny Snart, and Mick seriously considers using the shiv he just stole off one of Lenny’s attackers to stab him himself because that was a terrible pun. He doesn’t, in the end. It’s the best decision Mick’s ever made.

They spend thirty odd years together, him and Mick, and Mick loves every second of it, every heist, every robbery, every crackling fire. He loves every moment of the two of them side by side, taking on the world. He loves every kiss, every chance to hold Lenny close.

Then the particle accelerator explodes, right over the Gateway, and the Old comes rushing back into the world.

“Fuck.” says Mick, but Lenny’s grinning, alive with opportunity.

For nine months, it looks like Mick is getting away scot-free. For nine months, nothing untoward happens. For nine months, Mick is fine.

Then the streets fill with lightning, and Mick knows his time in the shadows is coming to an end.

Len, damn him, thinks Tamanuitera makes a worthy adversary in the game he’s been playing for millennia, and Mick throws himself into denial twice over – once, because he will not take back is old identity and once more because his old adversary looks damn good in the vessel he’s chosen and the skintight leather suit favors. Mick does his best to keep his old self under wraps – he covered his ta moko in burn scars years ago, and he covers his divinity with lack of use, he covers his old attachments under layers of dust. He lies low, and he waits. Lenny brings in his sister, Golden Lisa, so that she can lure and trap Tamanuitera’s allies, find out more about his nemesis. The game draws on. Tamanuitera convinces Luck himself that he could play the fall of the dice to a different outcome in a warm and cozy living room two days before a holiday none of them really celebrate. 

Then Rip Hunter offers them a place on his ship, a chance to be legends. Mick bites back his laugh, refrains from saying that he’s always been a legend, and takes the out for what it is, a chance to get away from Him, from the responsibilities always biting at his heels. Mick loses his Luck at the end of time to an explosion he was going to sacrifice himself in. There’s a ring in his pocket and a wink in his memory and even the fact that Luck follows you isn’t enough to help at all. He drinks to forget Len’s blue eyes. It doesn’t help. He tries to die to forget Len’s warmth at his back, in his bed. It doesn’t work, and that helps even less. His Luck is gone, and he is purposeless.

They land in 2017 to fight aliens, and He is all those aliens are looking for. Mick watches Him start to walk away, ready to turn himself in, watches a worn-down man with a worn-down soul who would one day be numbered next to greatness call out in desperation and ask Him to stop. Mick watches Tamanuitera walk away, and thinks that at last, even without his Luck, he might be at peace. 

Mick watches Tamanuitera walk away, and feels something stirring in his chest that hasn’t moved in a long time. The threads move and pull in front of his eyes, showing him what will happen if he lets Tamanuitera walk away, if he lets Barry walk away.

They like to say that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Here is the deepest secret nobody knows: all moments are repeating stories with different casts, all things have happened before and will happen again. Mick knows this. Lenny, his Luck, knew this. When the Sun departs too quickly, tasks that must be completed are never finished. If the Flash leaves now, the Justice League will never assemble, and the world will end before its time.

The Sun needs slowing. And there is one person who has done that successfully.

Second verse, same as the first, right?

“You and what army, Oliver?” asks Barry. Mick knows the answer to that. When Oliver opens his mouth to reply, Mick speaks over him.

“He doesn’t need an army. He has me.”

Barry turns in surprise, eyebrows shooting to his hairline.

“You do remember I’ve beaten you more that once, right, Heatwave?” Barry says the name like it’s a taunt, like it’s something Mick should be ashamed of. Heatwave is something his Luck gave him. Mick will never be ashamed of it. Mick grins and shakes off the taunt.

“We’re not playing the same game as we were, Flash.” Mick shoots back. “You’re not leaving.”

“I leave, and the Dominators leave us alone.” Barry says. Mick rolls his eyes. Barry Allen is idealistic and shiny and truthful and pure and good. Mick needs to get past Barry Allen to make his point. Barry turns his back and starts to walk away once more.

“Tamanuitera!” Mick roars. His voice echoes around the warehouse.

“What the fuck.” says Ramon, and Barry turns, surprised.

“What did you call me?” he asks.

“Tamanuitera.” repeats Mick, only marginally softer. Barry stiffens.

“That’s what –“ he starts.

“Who the hell do you think he is!” yelps Ramon.

“He’s talking to the Speedforce.” says Barry. “How do you know how to talk to the Speedforce?”

Mick grins.

“We’ve met.” Mick tells him. “Once before, in ages past. You are not leaving, Tamanuitera. This is your place, and your time. I will not let you dictate the length of our time in the Sun.”

Barry’s face twists. Mick reaches into the space between this world and the next and pulls. The ropes come with ease, the jawbone all-bar flies into his hand.

Mick might have been neglecting his duties for too long, but that will end now. The world pulls and shifts, and Mick can feel his ta moko twining over his skin, over the scars that made him who he was in this world. Judging by the gasp from behind him, his shirt’s gone and everyone assembled can see. The rope curls out from his hand, wraps around Barry’s waist, tight and strong. Barry wriggles and fights and pulls.

“Taura nui, taura roa, taura kaha, taura toa, taura here i a Tamanuiterā, whakamaua kia mau kia ita!” murmurs Mick, voice level and strong.

Last time he did this, he had help, had brothers. Without them, Mick’s feet skid across the floor when Barry tries to run.

“Taura nui, taura roa, taura kaha, taura toa, taura here i a Tamanuiterā, whakamaua kia mau kia ita!”

Barry writhes and pulls and flashes with lightning. Mick holds tight, holds fast. He remembers this story. He knows how it must end

“Taura nui, taura roa, taura kaha, taura toa, taura here i a Tamanuiterā, whakamaua kia mau kia ita!” 

Someone steps up to Mick’s left. It’s Cisco, his eyes haunted with the remnants of the lifetimes Mick has lived, with the lifetime Cisco knows he himself will lead. Mick looks down at the rope in his hands, watches as Cisco reaches down and wraps his hands around it, adds his unshaking optimism, his hope, his passion, his pain to the power flowing through Mick and the rope thanks to the karakia.

“Taura nui, taura roa, taura kaha, taura toa, taura here i a Tamanuiterā, whakamaua kia mau kia ita!” they chant, voices doubled and stronger, holding Barry in place. Mick’s feet skate across the floor more slowly.

“Taura nui, taura roa, taura kaha, taura toa, taura here i a Tamanuiterā, whakamaua kia mau kia ita!”

Oliver is at Mick’s right, calloused hands comfortable on the woven ropes in the way only one who has woven their like can be, pushing his pain, his uncertainty, his fear and strength and loss under Mick’s skin. Then Joe’s work-worn hands, sure and steady from years of keeping his temper under the weight of the expectations of others, Iris, vibrant and glowing with the will of the young, Wally, strong with the determination of a student clinging to a favored teacher. Here is Jax, lit from within with belief and trust, Thea and her fear and her darkness and her power, Ray and his earnestness, Kara and her unwavering love. Barry pulls and thrashes and gasps and they do not move, none of them.

“Taura nui, taura roa, taura kaha, taura toa, taura here i a Tamanuiterā, whakamaua kia mau kia ita!”

Maui releases the rope, leaves it to those who love Barry, and draws the jawbone from its place at his waist, and brings it down hard against Tamanuitera’s shoulder.

“Why are you doing this to me?” asks Tamanuitera.

Second verse, same as the first.

“From now on, you will travel slowly across the sky, and never again will the length of our day be dictated by you.” Maui replies.

All moments are just stories repeating, recast.

The world twists, pulls, moves. In the corner of Maui’s eye, Tyche, blue glowing and beautiful with eyes of ice, smiles a true smile.

Barry staggers, and falls slack in the noose of the rope, and Mick’s hand falls slack at his side, jawbone still clutched in his grip. They regard each other for a moment, Maui and Tamanuitera, Mick and Barry, Heatwave and the Flash, two men with one lifetime behind and another ahead, two men who were hiding from seeking sorrow. 

“You will have your Golden Age, then.” says Tamanuitera. “You will have your Sun.”

Maui smiles with the pain of loss.

“I would rather have my Luck. Both My Sun and I did always prefer him, and I am not fond of being the consolation prize.”

“That’s a lie.” says Barry Allen, says Tamanuitera, eyes wide like saucers. “You are far from a consolation prize.”

Mick Rory stares back, shocked. Barry shrugs off the ropes, wraps his hands around Mick’s face, pulls him down until their lips meet. 

“My Sun.” says Mick, says Maui, when they part. “Mine, tamed and caught.”

Barry smiles, and the sun breaks through the clouds.


End file.
